1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to distance electronic consults and, more particularly, to a system and method for providing health care information customized to the profile of a health care provider, wherein the health care provider is compensated for providing clinical insights on health care information retrieved by the health care provider over the system and/or information on the health care provider's health care practice.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medical doctors, physician assistants, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, pharmacists, optometrists, naturopaths, osteopaths, chiropractors, and other health care providers are ever increasingly faced with a growing body of technical literature related to the health care needs of their patients. Pressures to reduce costs in the provision of health care services, however, has resulted in many health care providers having to expend significantly longer periods of time in pursuit of their occupations than in the past to obtain the same desired income. The latter has resulted in many health care professionals facing a dearth of time in which to obtain the knowledge necessary for them to stay current in their health care specialties.
A primary source of medical information is the technical literature which reports the results of studies and investigations undertaken by different researchers. Unfortunately, most health care providers today simply do not have the time to objectively compare a report on a medical topic made by one investigative group with those made by other investigative groups in order to discern a consensus on the topic. They often therefore depend on review articles that attempt to summarize the body of information pertaining to any particular medical topic. Unfortunately published review articles, like the published individual investigative report, do not provide the health care provider with an optimal way of questioning the results of a study, or the conclusions of an author. In truth for the most part, the health care provider generally does not have the capability of making inquiries in light of the health care provider's own experiences except through letters to the editor and the like. Medical knowledge is also hampered in that the authors of an article are unlikely to gain substantial input from the reading audience.
Many health care providers today gain a substantial amount of their continuing medical education through review seminars. Live review seminars provide the health care provider with the opportunity to field questions to, and exchange information with, the provider of the seminar. Many live review seminars are provided by manufacturers of health care products and services. Such companies also provide for live interaction with their representatives, such as detail representatives of a pharmaceutical company. The problem with these sources of information is that seminars and detailing may not be offered at an optimum time given the individual health care provider's schedule. For example, a physician can not take the time to attend a live seminar course or meet with a detail person when one of the physician's patients is in immediate need of medical care. Further, a physician is often unable to participate in face-to-face medical information exchanges due to patient scheduling conflicts.
There is a significant desire by manufacturers of health care products and providers of health care services that certain information pertaining to their products be disseminated. Such manufacturers also know that the best method of disseminating medical information to health care providers is a one-on-one exchange wherein the health care provider is provided the opportunity to exchange his or her real-life experiences with a particular treatment protocol, or an alternative treatment protocols. Such an interchange not only allows the manufacturer to address concerns by the health care provider in regard to the manufacturer's information, but also allows the manufacturer to learn the most pressing educational needs of the health care provider. For example, it makes little sense to provide information pertaining to the benefits of a drug designed to treat benign prostrate hypertrophy when a physician's practice consists entirely of female patents.
While a one-to-one exchange is extremely useful both for the manufacturer/service provider and the health care provider, as discussed above such exchanges are becoming far more difficult due to the ever increasing time demands on health care providers. For example, it has been reported that nearly half of all visits made to a physicians' offices by drug detail representatives do not result in the representative actually speaking to the physician. Of those pharmaceutical detailers who get an audience with a physician, it has been estimated that on average the detail lasts for less than two minutes, an insignificant time for a true information exchange to take place. Given the economics of spending time on non-reimbursed educational exchanges versus providing fee-for-service exchanges with patients in a health care system micro-managed to limit reimbursement for medical services, many health care providers simply are not provided the incentive to spend time on educational exchanges.
Accordingly, there is a significant need on behalf of both manufacturers of health care products and purveyors of health care services on the one hand, and health care providers on the other hand, to be able to efficiently communicate with one another at opportune times for the health care provider. There is also a need to provide incentives to health care providers to take the time to adequately apprise themselves of new information pertaining to medical therapies, and medical products/services.